Landlords and tenants: housing and the rented property market in early fourteenth-century Norwich

Abstract

Most evidence for leasing in medieval towns is episodic and unquantifiable. An exceptional Norwich source has been used to estimate the scale of demand for rented accommodation and to assess the resulting multiple occupation of freehold properties. The way in which a growing population was housed at Norwich and the physical and social consequences is examined. Much of the demand for rented property was met by landlords who were both secular and private, suggesting that in this respect fourteenth-century Norwich resembled Bristol rather than Oxford. Finally, the response of institutional landlords to an apparently growing demand and the behaviour of rents is considered. Falling rent receipts from the late 1330s may be an indicator of economic rather than population decline.